Need Your opinion on Car Prices

Mutz

Hey guys,

Just want to ask your opinion on what year car, just a normal Astra or Golf 1.4, I could get for between Eur 1500 and Eur 3000, which I hope to get in June/July.

This will be the first car I will have owned, and was hoping to get a 95 to 96 car, but looking in the buy and sell and buyandsell.ie, the amount of crap they are offering for rediculus prices for eight year old cars with mad mileage is utter crap .

e.g: VW GOLF 1.4 1992. 100k miles, nct, red, immac cond, first to see will buy, €2250. Phone xxxxxxxxxxxxx.


The Astras aren't too Bad, but the Golf's are crazy'ily priced (I do Know that they hold their selling value cause they are a good car), so what kind of prices would you assume I would be able to haggle them down to?

mike65

The first thing to do is decide what you're actually willing to pay -
€1500-3000 means nothing except you're too flexible! Fix a price in your head and do not go over it by more than the
price of a tank of fuel. Or a night in the pub whichever is less.

For 3000, if that is your max you should get something around
1996 maybe 1997 if an exellent low-mileage order, it depends on all sorts though. If you're buying privatly then you can get a "tidy" 1994 example for maybe €1800. Or a dog for €800

Mike.

DMC

And that's why they are priced that highly, compared with a similarly featured car of the same age. VW's have an excellent track record in the second hand market and really set the standard for holding their value. They give the best return on investment, IMO.

And especially the Golf!

Redshift

Astras don't hold their value well at all compared to other cars so you would probably get a newer model for cheaper than an older VW im not trying to put you off an astra indeed I drove one for years and had no trouble with it. As said previously fix a price in your head before you go for a Car and don't deviate remember it's a buyers market in used Cars so you should be able to haggle yourself a good cash deal.

Cheers
RED

John2002

A friend of mine bought a 94 Citreon ZX, that didn't have huge mileage, in June last year for £1000 (quite a good deal imo). However, it cost him ~£700 to fix everything necessary for the NCT. It's just something to watch for, whether the car has been NCT'd or not because it could turn out to be a lot more expensive than anticipated.

DMC

What I will be interested in is the value of a second-hand Ford Focus, ones that are between 6-8 years old in a few years time. Ford generally never had the best resale value, I hope the curse of the Escort comes around when I want to pick one up second-hand!

Chimaera

Apparently, the Focus has the best residuals in its class here at the moment. And the Mondeo is supposed to be doing very well also.

They are both great cars, with none of the rattles and gremlins that blighted older Fords, and it looks like the demand is there for them, keeping prices buoyant.

Even in the UK, where Ford have traditionally had huge oversupply problems, the Focus is doing better than the Golf.

RicardoSmith

While golfs are very good, they are not so good that warrants the massive second hand prices people charge for them. If I was you I'd try to get a car that has just got its NCT, that will save you a lot of hassle. High mileage is ok, if the car has been serviced properly, and the seller can show you a history of good sevicing with reciepts etc. If buying a car with high mileage say 60k/80k/100k you should look to see if al the major services have been done in case it needs timing belt work or similar done at these intervals and perhaps thats whu someone is selling it...

I certainly wouldn't pay over the odds for a vw they do not have the greatest reliabilty record compared to some other makes, like honda, toyota, subaru etc.

Chimaera

Also, be aware that low mileage cars can be more trouble than high mileage cars - the engine of a car that's only ever been driven around town and occasional longer journeys will hardly ever get a chance to warm up properly and could be in far worse condition than a car that is routinely driven on open roads.

Provided it has been serviced properly, a highish mileage car is probably a better bet than a car that only manages 6-7k miles a year.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Chimaera
Also, be aware that low mileage cars can be more trouble than high mileage cars - the engine of a car that's only ever been driven around town and occasional longer journeys will hardly ever get a chance to warm up properly and could be in far worse condition than a car that is routinely driven on open roads.

Provided it has been serviced properly, a highish mileage car is probably a better bet than a car that only manages 6-7k miles a year.

While it is possible to have problems with a car that hasn't been driven much it is extremely rare for that to happen. There is a much much higher probability to have problem with a car that has higher mileage. So, no offense Chimera but I think you are laying in on a bit thick there. This was also an urban myth about low mileage that the irish dealers tried to out about the japanese imports when they first came over here and has proven to be exactly that, a myth.

It also a myth that the German cars are more reliable than japanese cars. The hard data has shown this simply not true aswell. In fact Japanese cars are much more reliable than German ones! But for some reason people fall for the advertising.

DMC

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
It also a myth that the German cars are more reliable than japanese cars. The hard data has shown this simply not true aswell. In fact Japanese cars are much more reliable than German ones! But for some reason people fall for the advertising.

Of course, it wasn't always that way.

It takes time to convince people. Yes, the Corolla is a great car, but the first ones were far, far, far removed from the article we have today. The VW's, Peugeot, BMW and other European cars made their name in the 80's when the Japanese cars were only getting started over here, Ford were going shít after the mark 2 Escort and the last of the Morris Minors and Hillman Hunter's coughed and spluttered on our roads. I would say the European and Japanese cars are equals, but, me being me, I'd side with an Opel or (hubba hubba) a Ford Focus sooner than a Toyota or Nissan. That's just my feelings.

It takes time to change peoples opinions and also, in turn, the second hand prices.

Chimaera

Another thing to consider is that no company makes truly bad cars anymore. Sure you hear about dodgy cars from time to time, but on the whole, the average car you buy today is far more reliable than the average car from 30 years ago.

As for Germany vs Japan, they have different strengths - Japanese cars are known for being well screwed together and mechanically sounds, but for a long time, they have been perceived as dull dependable cars without any real flair - also, the interiors of a lot of Japanese cars that I've seen are made from these horrible shiny plastics, and they certainly don't look very high quality. The German makes (especially the premium brands) tend to be more stylish and use higher quality materials (esp in the interior), and from what I've read about them, seem to be as reliable as the Japanese cars. Certainly, a 20year old Mercedes is going to be in far better shape on average than a 20 year old Toyota, and even a 10 yo Merc will probably be a lot tidier than a 10yo Toyota.

RicardoSmith: can you give a source for this hard data? Quite often, these "reliability" surveys are in fact customer satisfaction surveys (esp the JD Power survey) and measure how happy the owner is with the car, and also the service they get from their dealer i.e. the whole ownership experience. So a car could be 100% reliable and not score highly cos the dealers are not very friendly towards the customers. Another important consideration is the size of the survey - a survey of 1000 cars could not really be accepted as an accurate reflection of the reliability of a car, esp in the case of mass market models where hundreds (if not thousands) are coming off the line every day.

If I had the money to spend, I'd buy German before Japanese, because I consider German cars to be far better in terms of engineering quality than the Japanese marques.

RicardoSmith

Your turning a car with lower mileage vs higher mileage argument into an Japanese vs German argument. Thats not what I was pointing out. I was pointing out that dealers made the same low mileage=not good on Japanese imports and it hasn't proven to be the case. Epecially if the car is well looked after. So personally I choose a car with lower mileage over one with higher mileage.

However since you are going there....

20yr old mercedes vs 20yr old lexus is what you should be saying. I've seen a few high mileage lexus and they were in tiptop shape. If you are comparing a Merc to a Corolla then thats a bit silly isn't it.

I had a 10yr old honda that was the equal of 10yr old golf I had in every respect, except that golf actually needed more work in terms of maintenance. This has been the experience of everyone I know. The japanese cars simply need less mantenance.

My Dad for example has just put 350k on a franky horrible carina estate, (the brown interior was something else) but fair play the mechanicals/engineering were up to it. I doubt that he willl get the same out of the vw vento he has now which even up this point around 80k has has required a heck of a lot more attention.

Any of the mechanics I know say that they are seeing a lot more lower quality components on vw cars these day, items that used to be made from metal are being made out of plastic and failures are more common as a result. The first batch of the mkIV 98' golfs had lots of minor problems for example. The quality seems to have improved since though. The first batch of S Class merc were generally slated over poor quality interiors etc. THis was a problem throughout mercedes on most of their new ranges in 98- 00. A lot of these things again have been improved 01-02. Have a look in any BMW 92-94 the interiors are terrible and BMW spent some time improving their current ranges. Remember the problems that BMW had with their engines all wearing out prematurely? Need I go on?

As for surveys, well they are what they are. They can't be hundred percent reliable. But what else do you have to go on? But when all of them are pretty consistant with one another you can't ignore the picture that they are painting.

However I think a lot of people (myself included) are just generally happier with the aesthetics of european cars, both internally and externally. The styling of a lot of Japanese cars just doesn't grab you.

The other point to make is that Japanese cars have a shorter shelf life by design as the Japanese change their cars much more often than we do. Their mot/nct is a lot stricter and more frequent than ours so their cars have to be more reliable to pass it.

Of course we don't all buy cars for their reliablity. Theres a bit of passion and soul, not to mention a whole prestige thing/badge snobbery thing going on. But the facts (be they surveys) do not bear out the idea/myth that german/european cars are more reliable or better engineered than Japanese ones.

No matter what mileage the car has done.

The_Bullman

I doubt that he willl get the same out of the vw vento he has now which even up this point around 80k has has required a heck of a lot more attention.

i was actually thinking of getting one of these cars. would you recomment against it?

RicardoSmith

Test drive one and tell us what you think. Personally I think there are better cars out there for the same money. I think they drive/handle very poorly. But it has huge storage and if you get a diesel v.economical. The 1.4 petrol is really slow though. However the vento is a curious car. It seems perfect for taxi's/hackneys as the car it replaced the Jetta was a favorite of theirs. But yet you don't get many as hackneys/taxi's. I guess they don't like them either.

If you got one dirt cheap and in good nick then it would be ok. But I wouldn't pay much money for it and a lot of them lead v.hard lives so what the mileage in case its been clocked.

At the price you are paying I'd be looking for the best price/conditional/mileage as my criteria and be pretty flexible about the make.

The_Bullman

since an astra was mentioned at the start of this thread, I was wondering if anyone heard anything about opels having trouble passing the emmisions test at the NCT?

Mercury_Tilt

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